real love

And every time I think of you, every time, I think of shadow puppets and how shadows aren't always something to fear. I'll just hold your shadow hands, unless they are already busy making me laugh. Yours are better than mine, and we laugh at how my animals don't look like animals at all, but hands trying to be animals. Why, your rabbit's head looks an awful lot like a human thumb, you laugh, rolling far from me on the bed so my retaliation is made that much harder. I punch you and challenge you to do better. With the crooked, sly grin I love, you twist and turn your fingers to create something a magician would crave to have in his show. I politely applaud, saying, ahh, but a rabbit, a rabbit, my love, that's the easiest trick in the book. So you nod, furrow your brow, and allow your hands to do the talking, creating both wild animals and gentle creatures, looking back at my face each time, assuring yourself of my approval. Unlike mine, yours look as if they could jump off the wall and onto the floor, and they sound as if, if provoked, they could growl and scratch and tear. But under your protection, I know I won't be devoured, by the darkness or the shadows or the hungry animals that aren't animals at all, but hands trying to be animals. I'm afraid of the dark, but, with you, the dark is afraid of me instead.